Weirder Tales

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Zombie Days

It is one thing to lose your keys but when body parts start to vanish life just sucks. That is what Melissa was thinking at the moment. Being a Zombie sucked big time.

When she was 14 she’d read The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Covenant had Leprosy. It was awful. His world was turned upside down and he more or less lost everything. In a weird twist he was transported into a fantasy world where he was whole, at least in body. It wasn’t an easy series to read and it wasn’t happy. It was just weird to Melissa then because she wasn’t a fantasy fan. Now she was a zombie, and not a fan of that either.

It would be nice to blink and be in a fantasy world. Better yet be back in her normal world with her normal job and her normal boyfriend. Unfortunately she was in some sort of fantasy nightmare that was real life. It didn’t make sense. She looked down and then picked a finger nail up off the ground. Crap, even professional nail glue wouldn’t keep them on.

Michael wasn’t her boyfriend back before the Zombie days. He was just a guy who was a friend she’d work with occasionally. Her real boyfriend was… she had to pause to think hard. Memories were fading. She thought of old film archives of disintegrating film. It was like that. Nate. The boyfriend was Nate. He was tall and funny and perfect. He was a brain surgeon. The irony didn’t escape Melissa on that one. Her stomach grumbled. Brains.

Nobody ever expects to go on a simple business trip and at the end of the day becoming a zombie. It was just a simple stop to see what had been caught under that car. They thought it was a tumbleweed. It was Zombies.

Men in Black, Area Z (top-secret Zombie internment camp), an escape, help from some unlikely friends and now they were in a remote cabin in the woods. They could wait it out. They were already dead. The dead can wait forever.

Given the choice she would have chosen to become a Vampire. Even a Werewolf would have been better. She liked dogs. She liked running in the woods. Even a Ghost would be good if you had to be dead. Anything was better than being a Zombie.

Sitting at an old roll top desk, Melissa penned a letter to a friend. She might decide to send it or maybe not. As she wrote her skin made skid marks on the paper in a pinkish gray line. If she squinted she could pretend it was fairy dust. At least she could still hold a pen and write in something that resembled her once beautiful handwriting.

She wrote of Michael, her companion and now Zombie lover.

“I know he is the one. I know it in my heart of hearts that no longer beats. I know it every time he moans and shuffles towards me. I know it when he tries to look presentable and human. He does it just for me. He makes me laugh so I won’t cry. He stuffs the fingers of my gloves where I no longer have my own fingers. He tells me I’m still beautiful.”

A sticky tear of something green trickled down her face. Maybe she’d pick some wild flowers and cheer up their space. She looked out the window at the sound of a truck. She could see two men inside, sitting in the front seat with crisp clean uniforms. They were from the Forest Service. She smiled. Finally lunch had arrived.

I know what you mean. Despite what you hear friendship with a zombie isn’t always a no-brainer. Zombies tend to just fall apart in the middle of conversation, even losing their heads over nothing. Sigh. And you have a point about the smell – yuck.